


Window on a Room

by NiceHatGeorgia



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Alternate Reality, Episode: s04e06 Window of Opportunity, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-11-22 13:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11380710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiceHatGeorgia/pseuds/NiceHatGeorgia
Summary: The first time around, Sam had found that face the Colonel was making to be endearing, in the increasingly problematic way she found pretty much everything he did to be endearing. The second time, she had found it alarming - not the Colonel specifically, of course, just the fact that she’d already experienced that exact moment not ten hours earlier. She went from being alarmed on the second loop to being frustrated, baffled and discouraged in subsequent loops as their attempts to stop the looping had all failed. And now that they had settled into this routine, with Sam and Teal’c, loop after loop, learning to translate the altar text themselves, well now she was just tired. Not even the Colonel’s problematically endearing face was helping.Another loop, she thought to herself. Here we go again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fluffy little AU was inspired by PepperF's [Practice Makes Perfect](https://archiveofourown.org/works/210280), which is one of my favorite (of many, many favorite) Window of Opportunity fics. Thank you, PepperF!

“Anyway I'm sorry but that just happens to be how I feel about it. What do you think?” 

 

Poor Daniel looked at Colonel O’Neill so earnestly, so expectantly. After all these years, Daniel should have been able to tell that the Colonel was not listening, not at all. Instead, he was making that face he made when he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to do, and he wasn’t sure yet if he was going to be able to pass it off as funny or if someone was actually going to be mad at him.

 

The first time around, Sam had found that face of his endearing, in the increasingly problematic way she found pretty much everything he did to be endearing. The second time, she had found it alarming - not the Colonel specifically, of course, just the fact that she’d already experienced that exact moment not ten hours earlier. She went from being alarmed on the second loop to being frustrated, baffled and discouraged in subsequent loops as their attempts to stop the looping had all failed. And now that they had settled into this routine, with Sam and Teal’c, loop after loop, learning to translate the altar text themselves, well now she was just tired. Not even the Colonel’s problematically endearing face was helping.

 

Another loop, she thought to herself. Here we go again.

 

The Colonel opened his mouth as if to reply to Daniel and Sam rolled her eyes as she pushed back from the table and stood up. No need to bother with being professional on this loop, they were still a long way off from completing the translation. Sam felt his questioning gaze as she pushed her chair back under the table and stretched her arms up over her head. She was sure she’d never rolled her eyes at him before. Not to his face, anyway. Not outside the time loop.

 

“Something you’d like to share with the class, Major?” he asked her pointedly.

 

“No sir,” she chirped back, stretching her arms in front of her now with her fingers intertwined. “Just giving you an out.”

 

She saw the Colonel's mouth drop open for a split second, Fruit Loops balanced precipitously on his spoon as his gaze darted back and forth between her and Daniel. She turned and headed off in the direction of the briefing room. “See you guys in 10,” she called out over her shoulder.

 

She smirked to herself as behind her, she heard him take the out. “What’s up with her?” he said in an exaggerated, conspiratorial whisper, and with that, anything Daniel had been trying to talk about was dead and buried.

 

* * *

 

 

Sam reached the briefing room first and flopped down in her customary chair with a sigh. On the first several loops, there had been more scrambling as she and Teal’c tried to figure out what was going on, what they had missed on the previous loop, and how to most efficiently explain their situation to the others so they could get down to the business of solving their problem. By now, they had it down to a science. She learned rather quickly that it was no use saying anything at all over breakfast, but much better to wait until everyone was assembled in the briefing room and the Colonel was fed. Teal’c got in the habit of swinging by the infirmary to request that Dr. Fraiser join the briefing too, saving that extra trip, and through a careful process of trial and error, they’d learned how to present the situation in such a way that the doctor would not insist on shining a pen light in their eyes like she had the first couple dozen times.

 

Sam smiled at Teal’c as he entered the briefing room. “Major Carter,” he said, his customary nod no worse for the wear after taking yet another door to the face.

 

The two took advantage of the few minutes they had before the rest of the team arrived to compare notes from the previous loop, making sure they remembered what they had learned and where they stood on the translation. As Daniel and the Colonel filed into the room, followed by Dr. Fraiser and finally General Hammond, Sam took a deep breath and stood.

 

“SG-1,” the General acknowledged. “This is a briefing about your upcoming mission to P4X-639. Major, you have the floor.”

 

“Thank you, sir,” Sam began. “We’re scheduled to go off-world today to investigate solar activity on P4X-639. But in fact we’ve already visited the planet, and the events that transpired while we were there somehow resulted in a time loop, which we are now caught in.” She saw eyebrows shoot up around the table, all except Teal’c’s, of course. “Teal’c and I seem to be the only ones who remember experiencing these loops, which we hypothesize is a direct result of our proximity to the altar on P4X-639, and Malachi, the man who activated it.”

 

“Malachi, he’s the archaeologist SG-15 met when they first visited the planet last week, right?” Daniel queried, looking skeptical but intrigued, as he often did. Sam and Teal’c had learned long ago that however more expedient the two of them might find it to anticipate everyone else’s questions and answer them before they could be asked, the rest of the team felt much more at ease when they were allowed to give voice to the things they were wondering themselves.

 

“That’s right,” Sam said. She felt like an actor in a play, reciting lines she knew by heart after so many times up on the stage. She did her best each loop to engage her colleagues genuinely, as she hoped they would do for her, but she had never really been interested in theater. “He attempted to activate the device and when we intervened, he shot Daniel. Colonel O’Neill, you were closest to Daniel and turned to check on him while Teal’c and I attempted to contain Malachi. Then the loop engaged, and we found ourselves repeating the same 10 hours over and over.”

 

“And you believe this device the alien archaeologist activated is what created the, ah, time loop, as you call it?” asked General Hammond.

 

“We do,” Sam replied. “In fact we learned in one of the early loops that the time loop affect several surrounding planets and impacts our ability to dial out to planets not within this bubble.”

 

“So is it a loop or a bubble?” O’Neill jumped in.

 

Sam did her best to grin politely at this joke that was not even funny the first time instead of rolling her eyes at him. Again. She made a mental note to try not to use the word “bubble” next time.

 

“It is a time loop within a spacial bubble, O’Neill,” Teal’c supplied, and Sam shot him a grateful look.

 

“We can dial the planets also trapped in this loop, and they can dial us, but otherwise we’re cut off from the Stargate network, which presumably has been experiencing normal time.” Sam indicated a list of planets they could still contact, which she’d written on the whiteboard behind her.

 

“SG-12 is currently on P4X-239,” Hammond noted, “but they’re not scheduled to come back for a few days.”

 

“In fact, SG-12 will return now,” Teal’c said, and on cue, the klaxons sounded.

 

Hammond looked at Teal’c and then at Sam, and then rose with the rest of the group to file into the control room. These parlor tricks were certainly helpful, however tedious they had become.

 

“Unscheduled off-world activation,” Walter said. “Receiving SG-12’s IDC.”

 

“Open the iris,” Hammond replied, looking back to Teal’c and Sam.

 

“Captain Lorenz is injured,” Teal’c explained, as four figures materialized through the gate, one of them limping and leaning on his teammates. “He suffered a fall. Dr. Fraiser will find that his ankle is broken.”

 

“SG-1, back to the briefing room.” Hammond ordered. “I’m going to need more of an explanation here.”

 

So they all took their seats again, and Sam explained, as concisely as her inquisitive co-workers would allow. And as she recited her monologue in this particular scene in the play, she allowed her mind to wander. She wondered, not for the first time, at how much trust these people put in her, because not a single one of them laughed in her face or questioned her sanity. Oh, there were questions, of course, as they all came to terms with what was going on, but no one fundamentally questioned her grasp on reality, her approach to solving the problem, or her ability, along with Teal’c, to see their solution through. She could only hope she would be so generous with her teammates if their roles were reversed.

 

Sam checked back in as she wrapped up her explanation. She knew Daniel needed to ask a question about a strategic decision he’d made in one of the early loops, and she knew the Colonel would make a lame pun in response. Once they’d both delivered their lines, the General dismissed them, as he always did, and they all filed out.

 

Sam suppressed a sigh as she and the rest of SG-1 headed off in the direction of Daniel’s office. They had come a long way toward translating the text on the altar, but there was so much more left to do. End of act one, she thought dryly to herself.

 

* * *

 

Their morning routine took about 45 minutes, leaving them with just over 9 hours every loop for a long, tedious, and as yet unresolved act two. She and Teal’c would take turns catching Daniel up, and for his part, Daniel never failed to excel as both student and teacher.

 

Normally, Sam loved throwing herself into her work, but this was beyond extreme, even for her, not to mention outside of her specific area of expertise and therefore not as inherently captivating to her. Her fascination at the existence of a device that could create time loops had faded many, many loops ago as it gave way to the monotony of learning how to translate the ancient text. She wished Daniel had been one of the ones caught in the loop, which would’ve made this whole translation process significantly easier and likely would’ve left her out of it entirely, which was sounding better and better with every cycle. Nevertheless, she had to admit she appreciated the fresh and genuine enthusiasm he brought to each loop. It was a good and needed balance to her increasing melancholy.

 

Sam dropped the chalk she had using to write on the board onto the tray with unnecessary gusto and then dropped herself onto a chair next to Daniel. “Teal’c?” She looked at him and he nodded, rising, and moving to take his turn at the chalk board. In the corner of the room, the Colonel was juggling crumpled up balls of paper. This loop would be over in another half hour. Sam rubbed her forehead, already worn out at the thought of starting over again.

 

“So,” Daniel said gently, scooting his chair closer to hers, “exactly how many of these loops have you…have we been through?”

 

Sam turned to look at him but didn’t respond. This loop made 50, and she just couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.

 

“I must ask you that every loop,” Daniel said with a rueful smile.

 

Sam smiled back. Time loop or not, Daniel was always Daniel, and his predictability was comforting. “It helps me keep track,” she admitted.

 

“Are you doing ok?” he asked, and Sam froze. “I’m sorry,” he continued. “I must ask you that every loop too.”

 

“No, actually, you don’t.” She frowned. Something different in her behavior must have triggered a new response from Daniel. Apparently this looping was really getting to her, and apparently she was letting it show.

 

“It’s just that you seem so… defeated already. I mean, I know ‘already’ has been a lot longer for you than it has been for me, but we’ve got a good strategy, and we haven’t even seen it though yet.”

 

Sam sighed. She did feel defeated, and she did know that it was out of character for her. She was just so damn tired. From a physical standpoint, she knew that her body reset every 10 hours too, operating as if she had just woken up from a full night’s sleep, or full for her anyway. But mentally, she was exhausted. Her brain required rest too, and it had been running full steam for hundreds of hours straight now. Sam frowned again.

 

“It must be so frustrating,” Daniel offered.

 

“Ya think?” Colonel O’Neill chimed in sarcastically from the corner of the room, and in spite of herself, Sam smiled. She knew his ability to contribute constructively to this problem was limited, so he provided what little support he could by making sarcastic comments whenever a window of opportunity presented itself. And dammit if they didn’t always make her smile. She had to figure out how to stop finding him endearing. Maybe once they figured out how to end this time loop, she could get around to that.

 

Daniel shot O’Neill a look and then turned back to Sam. “On the other hand it's kind of an opportunity,” he said.

 

Now this was an interesting thought. “How so?” she replied.

 

“Well think about it, I mean, if you know in advance that everything is always going to go back to the way it was, then you could do anything for as long as you want without having to worry about the consequences,” he explained.

 

Sam stood up suddenly, nearly knocking over her chair in the process and drawing the attention of Teal’c, as well as the Colonel. “Excuse me,” she said as she raced out of the room.

 

* * *

 

Sam made her way to the surface as fast as she could. Time was dwindling on this loop, and while there would always be next time, there was something she wanted to do, had to do, now. Right now. She scolded herself mentally as the elevator went up, up and up. Of course she’d been too caught up in the task at hand to see the bigger picture. Of course she didn’t even think of this possibility.

 

But thank god, 50 loops times 10 hours ago, she’d somehow had the foresight to take her motorcycle to work. If she’d been in her car right now, by the time she made it back to her house to get to her bike, the loop would be over and she’d have to explain her way out of the briefing again, and right now she just couldn’t bear the thought of it when the promise of unmitigated speed was so close to her grasp.

 

Sam threw on her helmet and straddled her bike. The engine revved to life and she instantly felt relief. She pulled out onto the highway with one goal in mind: to ride fast. Heading south on highway 115, she leaned into her bike as she shifted gears and gunned the engine. The mountain scenery was a blur in her peripheral vision as she accelerated even more, pushing the needle higher and reveling in the adrenaline coursing through her veins. In the distance, the tell-tale sound of a police siren pierced the air. She spared a glance at her watch. There was no way they were going to catch her in the next six minutes. She let out a whoop as she leaned into a curve and began her ascent up the next mountain.

 

* * *

 

The world dissolved into a flash of light, and there she was, back in the commissary. There was Daniel, looking achingly earnest, and there was the Colonel, making that face of his, that unfailingly endearing face. Sam burst out laughing.

 

“Something you’d like to share with the class, Major?” the Colonel asked her, his eyebrows raised.

 

Sam recovered from her laughing fit enough to stand up and push her chair in.“Oh my god,” she said, ignoring him. “I’ve got to go find Teal’c.”

 

For the first time a long time, she was starting to feel hopeful that they might survive this after all.


	2. Chapter 2

The bike ride felt good. Really good. Sam couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of this a while ago, hadn’t realized how necessary it would be for their long-term well-being and productivity. She conferred with Teal’c, and together they set up a new routine to incorporate restorative activities into each loop in some small way. So far she was mostly just riding her bike. But it felt really good.

 

Unsurprisingly, rather than taking away from their time translating, Sam and Teal’c were more focused and productive on this new schedule. Sam felt more like herself than she had in a long time, and she noticed that Teal’c seemed to have lost that brittle edge of frustration that had been ever so slowly creeping in. The return of his kelno’reem sessions was apparently doing the trick.

 

Sometimes they explained to the rest of the team what they were doing. Other times, like today, Sam simply rose from the desk in Daniel’s office and announced it was time for her break. This often raised eyebrows in a way she would’ve cared about if anyone besides herself and Teal’c were going to remember it, anyone of course being the Colonel. She perhaps then shouldn’t have been surprised to find him casually hanging out topside, hands in his pockets, when she roared back from her mid-loop motorcycle ride.

 

“Sir,” she said by way of greeting.

 

“Carter,” he replied, eyeing her curiously as she tucked her motorcycle helmet under her arm and signed in.

 

“Were you up here waiting for me, sir?” she couldn’t help but ask.

 

“Nope,” he replied, jingling the keys in his pockets and looking up at the sky. “If you must know, it’s time for _my_ break now too.”

 

Sam tucked her chin down to hide her grin at his teasing.

 

“You go for a ride every loop?” he asked.

 

Sam shrugged. “Not every loop,” she replied. “Sometimes I do a quick one in the middle of the day while Teal’c kelno-reems, and sometimes I just relax in my lab.”

 

The Colonel’s eyebrows shot up. “You _relax_ in your _lab_?” he repeated incredulously.

 

Sam smiled again. Damn if he wasn’t always making her smile somehow. “Sometimes.”

 

“Is ‘relaxing’ code for ‘blowing things up,’ by any chance?”

 

Sam paused. It was not a bad thought. In fact, she had a whole list of experiments she had previously decided were too dangerous to risk the structural integrity of the underground compound to carry out…

 

But then she shook her head, dismissing the idea. While everything seemed to reset itself exactly at the beginning of each loop, they had yet to determine whether there were limits to this resetting, and whether something like accidentally blowing up the mountain and everyone inside might be more than the incessant looping could withstand. She wasn’t willing to take that risk, not yet, anyway. Ask her again in another couple hundred loops maybe…

 

“Carter?” she heard the Colonel say tentatively. “You still with me?”

 

“Yeah, sorry, sir,” she replied. He casually touched her elbow with his hand to steer her toward the elevator and she had to fight not to shiver at his touch. God, she had it bad. But this was nothing new. She swallowed and tried to think of something else to say. What had they been talking about? Oh yeah. Blowing things up.

 

“Do you have a better idea?” she asked. “Sir?”

 

“Carter, I can think of a million things I’d rather do than _relax_ in a _lab_.” As they rode the elevator down, he threw out idea after idea, each more ridiculous than the last.

 

“I can tell you’ve given this a lot of thought,” she said, amused. Something about riding in a elevator felt so safe. They were alone, but they weren’t facing each other, not looking in each other’s eyes, which might have felt too dangerous. They had nothing to do but nonetheless they were still going somewhere, achieving something. Anything could happen in an elevator. She felt her guard slip, as she often did, and she didn’t even bother trying to hide her smile.

 

“Not much at all,” he replied, seemingly pleased with himself. “I hope I’ve inspired you.”

 

“You always do,” she teased, and at his raised eyebrow, she cleared her throat. Maybe she needed to get out of this elevator before she did something both of them would regret. “Really sir, pottery?” she asked, changing the subject back to something safer than how he makes her feel.

 

“Why not?” he shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to learn.”

 

“You have?”

 

“Well sure.” At her disbelieving look, he shrugged. “Isn’t there something like that you’ve always wanted to learn to do? Something you never have time for and doesn’t really fit with the rest of your life?”

 

* * *

 

Mark picked up the phone on the second ring. It was 7:30 in the morning his time, and Sam was hoping to catch him before he went to work, since by the time he got home from work, well, it would be almost time for him to go to work again.

 

“Sam?” he answered the phone. “What’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing,” she said, frowning to herself as she leaned back against the wall in her lab.

 

“You sure?” he asked. “Is this about dad? It’s kind of a weird time for you to call.”

 

“Oh,” was all Sam could say. He did have a point. “Sorry,” she faltered. “My schedule can be so weird, you know, with -“

 

“- with deep space radar telemetry, yeah, I know,” he interjected.

 

Sam winced. This was not a strong start. After all these years, it was more or less understood that her cover was simply that, but sometimes Mark was more resentful than amused by it all. Probably calling so early in the morning with a strange request didn’t help support the idea that, cover story or no, her older brother needn’t be concerned for her welfare.

 

“Actually I’m calling because I’m hoping you can help me with something,” she began. “Any chance you ended up with mom’s old recipe book?” The family heirloom was more symbolically meaningful than practically useful, and between the three family members left, Mark was the only one with his feet on the ground, literally, enough to even keep track of it.

 

“Yeah, I think I’ve got it somewhere,” he answered. Sam could hear the kids in the background. She heard bags rustling and back packs zipping. It sounded like his wife and the oldest of their two kids were engaged in a very serious discussion about choice of foot ware. She pictured Mark throwing dishes in the sink, digging around for the car keys, utterly unaware that he had been repeating exactly this every ten hours for the last couple months.

 

“Can you find it for me? I’m looking for one recipe in particular. I wanted to give it a try.”

 

“Really?” Mark seemed surprised, which was fair, and still kind of suspicious, which was maybe also fair. Sam herself wasn’t totally sure about it either, but when the Colonel had brought up the idea of something she’d always wanted to learn but never had time for, this was the first thing that had popped into her head.

 

When she was a young girl, her mother used to make homemade honey wheat bread. Sam used to help, pouring flour into the bowl and turning the dough out on the table to knead. She had a very vivid memory - she couldn’t have been more than five - of kneading the bread with her mother, their fingers pressing together into the warm dough, the yeasty aroma making the air feel thick and sweet and happy and safe. Unfortunately, the lessons hadn’t stuck, and in the intervening decades, Sam had lost that feel of the dough and smell of the yeast. It was a long shot, but she thought if by some small chance her brother had the recipe and the kitchen had the ingredients she needed, she could try it again. And again, and again, if she wanted.

 

“I think it’s in the hutch in the dining room,” Mark mused. She heard him take what sounded like a big gulp of coffee and turn kitchen faucet on and then off again. “You want me to mail it to you?” he asked.

 

“Actually, could you just read it to me?”

 

“ _Read_ it to you?” Mark repeated, sounding incredulous.

 

“Yeah, just, like, tell me what it says.” Because he maybe didn’t understand what reading it meant? Sam shook her head to herself. This was not going well at all. In the background, she heard a door open and close, and she heard someone call out to Mark.

 

“Sam, I really don’t have time right now,” he said. “If you’d caught me like a half hour earlier maybe, but it’s 7:30 in the morning, we’re just about to step out the door, I don’t have time to dig around for one of mom’s old recipes and _read_ it to you over the phone.”

 

“Yeah, no, you’re right, I’m sorry,” she said.

 

“Don’t be sorry,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll mail it to you, ok?”

 

“Ok. That’d be great. No rush.”

 

“No rush?” he asked. “First you want me to read it to you over the phone and now it’s no rush?”

 

“Oh, no, I just -“

 

“Sam, is something going on? I knew when you called that there must be something.”

 

Sam sighed. Time loop or no, she couldn’t quite bring herself to hang up on her brother. “It’s nothing. It’s just… it’s been kind of a long day.”

 

“It’s 7:30 in the morning,” he reminded her.

 

“Right,” she said. “Just never mind.”

 

* * *

 

Sam smiled as she pulled her bike back into the parking lot at the top of the mountain and saw Colonel O’Neill casually hanging out topside, hands in his pockets. She’d pretty much figured out exactly how to phrase her mid-loop exit to pique his curiosity enough to get him to come looking for her. And she was pretty sure Teal’c had rolled his eyes at her when she did it this time, or at least he’d done the Teal’c equivalent of an eye roll.

 

“Sir,” she said.

 

“Carter.”

 

“Were you up here waiting for me, sir?” 

 

“Nope. If you must know, it’s time for _my_ break now too.”

 

Sam chuckled. She couldn’t help but feel a little smug.

 

The Colonel raised his eyebrows but carried on. “You go for a ride every loop?”

 

“Not every loop,” she replied. “Sometimes I go to my lab and blow things up.”

 

“Really?” He looked genuinely impressed.

 

She laughed. “Not really.”

 

“Too bad. Sounds like a good way to blow off some steam.”

 

Sam lingered at the check-in long enough for him to touch her elbow to steer her toward the elevator going down. Just because she knew it was coming didn’t make it any less of a thrill. God, she thought to herself, this is pathetic. Harmless, for sure, but definitely pathetic.

 

“Someone like you could have a lot of fun with explosives in a consequence-free world,” he offered.

 

“And someone like you?” she replied. “Sir?” It was just late enough that it came out sounding kind of cheeky, maybe even flirty. They reached the elevator and stepped in.

 

“Well, someone like me could have lots of fun doing all sorts of things,” he bantered back.

 

“Like pottery?”

 

The Colonel narrowed his eyes at her and she smiled back at him. Oh, this definitely felt like flirting. “Have we had this conversation before?”

 

“Maybe. Sort of. Sir.”

 

“Well,” he paused, waiting just long enough in the silence for things to get slightly uncomfortable before he continued. “Maybe we talked about pottery. But there are all sorts of things someone like me could have fun doing that I’m sure I wouldn’t mention to you.”

 

With that, the elevator dinged and the door opened on their floor. The Colonel stepped out and walked off, leaving a baffled and more than a little curious Sam frozen in place as the elevator doors closed on her again.

 

* * *

 

The next time, Sam called Mark a half hour earlier.

 

“Sam?” he answered the phone.

 

“Hey!” she interjected brightly, before he could ask what was wrong. “I know it’s early in the morning and a kind of a weird time to call, but I’ve got a special request and I’m really hoping you can indulge me.”

 

“Anything for my little sister,” Mark responded in kind. “Well, almost anything.”

 

Sam smiled. This was better. “I seem to remember you’re the one who ended up with mom’s recipe book. I’ve got an unexpected day off and thought I’d try her bread recipe. It’s probably going to take me forever to figure it out, so I thought I’d get started early.”

 

“You? Baking bread?” Mark’s tone was teasing and light. She could hear him slurping his coffee and the voices behind him in the kitchen got quieter as he moved into the dining room.

 

“I like to keep you guessing,” she teased back, and then listened some more as he opened and closed doors on the dining room hutch, shuffling through drawers and stacks of paper.

 

“If nothing else, you’re always good at that,” he replied. “I found the book. Which bread recipe do you want?”

 

“Can you find a wheat bread recipe? The one with honey in it?”

 

“Let me see,” Mark replied.

 

“Do you remember her making that one?” Sam surprised herself with the question. She and Mark almost never talked about her mom. She didn’t really talk about her mom with anyone, not the happy memories, not the gnawing sense of loss she still felt on an almost daily basis, nothing.

 

Mark was quiet for a minute. Sam imagined him leaning against his dining room table, their mom’s recipe book in his hands. Mark looked a lot like her father. He had more hair, but otherwise it was almost uncanny. It had always seemed strange to her that two people who looked so much alike could have ever fallen so far apart.

 

“Yeah, I do,” he said softly.

 

“Me too,” she said.

 

“You used to help her make it.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam replied. “I was just thinking of her and… I missed that.”

 

“You know, I was just thinking of her the other day too,” Mark said, almost wistfully.

 

“You were?” Sam asked.

 

“Yeah.”

 

It was more of a conversation about their mom than they’d had in years. Maybe ever.

 

“I found it,” Mark announced, breaking the moment. “You want me to read it to you so you can get cracking?”

 

“That would be great!” Sam said. So Mark read off a list of ingredients and Sam wrote them down. “Ok,” she said next. “And what are the instructions?”

 

“Ah…” she heard Mark flipping through some pages. “It says ‘375 for 30 minutes.’ But that’s it.”

 

“That’s it?” Sam repeated. She had memories of a somewhat complicated process, complicated to a five year-old at least, with periods of rising and kneading and who knows what else.

 

“That’s it.”

 

Sam slumped against the wall. This might be more of a project than she had been anticipating.

 

“Well, at least you’ve got all day to figure it out,” Mark offered.

 

“You have no idea,” Sam muttered, and then she straightened herself up. He was right. If she was ever, ever going to have the time to tackle something as ambitious as her mom’s honey wheat bread recipe, this was her window of opportunity. “Ok,” she said. “I can do this.”

 

Mark laughed at her pep talk. “I’m sure you can, Sam,” he said. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”

 

Sam smiled. It sounded like something her mom would’ve said.

 

“Tell you what,” Sam replied, leaning back against the wall again and twirling the phone cord around her finger. “I’ll master this, and then the next time I come visit, I’ll make it for you guys.”

 

Mark had walked his way back to the kitchen. She could hear the kids talking about the merits of Golden Grahams verses Lucky Charms in the background. “I wouldn’t say no to that,” he said to her. “Assuming you can ever tear yourself away from that fast-paced deep space radar telemetry job of yours.”

 

Suddenly, Sam had an idea. A grin spread over her face.

 

“Actually,” she said, “I don’t really work in deep space radar telemetry.”

 

“You don’t.” It was a statement, not a question.

 

“Nope.” Sam twirled the phone cord some more and propped her foot up on the wall behind her. “I work on a top secret government project that, as it turns out, they’ve just decided to declassify.”

 

“You’re kidding.” Again, it was not a question, but Sam could tell he wasn’t sure.

 

“Yep,” she breezed. “We found a device that creates a stable wormhole. We use it to travel to other planets across the galaxy.”

 

“You WHAT?”

 

“We call it the Stargate,” she went on. “I’m on a frontline team. The flagship team, actually. We explore other planets, and build diplomatic relations, and mine metals we need for the spaceship we’re building. When it’s ready, probably sometime next year, it will be capable of hyperspace travel across the galaxy. I helped design it.” It sure didn’t hurt anyone for her to brag a little, for once. She was pretty proud of her work on the Prometheus.

 

Mark was silent for a moment and then laughed, a full-on belly laugh. “Wow, Sam,” he said. “That’s a good one. You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

 

Sam laughed too. “I guess not,” she said. She thanked Mark for his help and wished him a good day, regardless of the fact that he’d already done this day many, many times before.

 

* * *

 

Sam steered her bike back into the parking lot and there he was, hands in his pockets, looking up at the sky.

 

“Sir.”

 

“Carter.”

 

She hadn’t been able to get their last conversation out of her head, as much as she knew he had no recollection of it at all. She stood there, helmet tucked under her arm, looking at him.

 

The Colonel cleared his throat. “I’m not up here looking for you, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said. “It just happens to be time for _my_ break now too.”

 

Sam continued staring.

 

“You go for a ride every loop?” he ventured.

 

She breathed out and wondered, _would he?_ “Sometimes,” she replied, eyeing him carefully.

 

He eyed her right back. With a deliberate air of nonchalance, he asked, “Ever take me with you?”

 

Oh my god, she thought. He totally would.

 

And really, why shouldn’t she?

 

“Carter?” he said, looking like he couldn’t decide if he was amused or nervous. “You still with me?”

 

Why not? Why the hell not? Sam dropped her helmet on the check-in table and grabbed his face her hands, barely allowing herself to take a breath before she kissed him, hard, right on the lips.

 

He pushed away. “Carter!” he shouted. “What the hell was that?”

 

Sam’s eyes widened. She looked at the security guard, who was trying and failing to pretend he hadn’t seen what had just taken place, and she looked back at the Colonel, and then at her helmet, and then back at the Colonel.

 

“Um,” she said. “I’m just gonna…” she motioned over her shoulder to her bike and grabbed for her helmet. “Can you just tell Teal’c… um… don’t tell him… I mean, tell him I’ll see him next time.”

 

She turned and ran to her bike, not waiting to hear his reply.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was getting too long (and it was taking too long!) so I decided to split it up into two. Last chapter will be coming soon!

Sam was not a baker, but she was a scientist. Where a baker might have known how to turn that list of ingredients into bread, Sam knew how to experiment. She was somewhat surprised that the kitchen had all the ingredients she needed, though she suspected the little packets of yeast had been sitting around in the storage locker for longer than she had been enlisted. For the first round, she simply combined all the ingredients and then baked them, 375 for 30 minutes. It didn’t work, but she hadn’t expected it to. She just needed to establish a baseline. From there, she tried various permutations of adding ingredients, mixing, rising, kneading, and shaping.

 

It felt good to be experimenting with something for fun, where the fate of the world was not at stake. It felt good to lose herself dough and yeast and gluten and flours instead of an ancient altar whose bright shiny newness had long since faded. And damn if it didn’t feel good to dig her hands into something. As it turned out, kneading dough was a great way to relieve stress. Maybe the Colonel was onto something with his pottery idea after all. Plus, with the loops resetting every ten hours, she never even had to clean up, which was a big part of why she hated cooking to begin with.

 

As the loops passed, she got better and better at making bread, and eventually ended up with a loaf that might have made her mother proud, or at least surprised. It certainly surprised her teammates when she showed up after their mid-loop break with freshly baked honey wheat bread, that was edible, no less.

 

* * *

 

Sam took great comfort in being able to solve just about any problem or unravel just about any mystery scientifically, using this experimental approach. Take, for example, kissing Colonel O’Neill. The first attempt had failed miserably, she was able to admit to herself. But this didn’t mean that the idea was fundamentally flawed. Imagine how many amazing scientific discoveries would have gone undiscovered if the scientist in question had given up after one failed attempt! The Stargate itself would’ve been thrown back in the ground somewhere, if they’d even had the equipment to find it and recover it in the first place. No, a good scientist persisted, she decided. Sam could persist too. She owed it to science.

 

Heartened by this mindset, Sam took a step back, and instead of letting herself feel rejected or otherwise hurt by the Colonel pushing her away when she tried to kiss him, she considered, what went wrong? What were the variables at play? What can be controlled, and what can’t? Certainly, the Colonel’s reaction couldn’t be controlled, but it could be influenced by permutations of other variables, like the location, the time of day, the company, how she approaches him, what sort of mood _she’s_ projecting, hell, even what she’s wearing. This opened up whole worlds of possibilities, possible solutions, possible successful… experiments.

 

For her second attempt, she decided to minimize the differences in order to isolate and identify what went wrong. Kissing him in front of the security guard was an obvious mistake, as far as she could tell, so after her next motorcycle ride, she waited until they were in the elevator, so safe and yet so full of potential. As soon as the doors were closed, the turned on him, grabbing his shirt and pinning him against the wall. He was apparently shocked enough that she got in two full seconds of a kiss before he pushed her away, looking bewildered and just a little bit more pissed off than usual. Sam frowned. She had felt so sure that the elevator would be the place.

 

The ride down to the SGC had never taken so long.

 

When the elevator doors finally opened, the Colonel bolted in the direction of his office, and Sam could’ve sworn she heard him mutter something about the goddamn Land of Light.

 

So, not the elevator.

 

Later that loop, she kneaded the hell out of her honey wheat bread dough and it came out crumbly and dry. She tossed the whole loaf in the trash and walked slowly back toward Daniel’s office, waiting for the redemptive flash of light that would give her a chance to try again.

  ****

* * *

 

 

The next loop, she rode patiently down the elevator with him, and when the doors finally opened in the SGC, Sam asked the Colonel if he could possibly accompany her to her lab to take a look at an idea she had. Once there, she closed the door, something she’d more or less never done before when they were alone in her lab, and she slammed him up against it, pressing her lips to his. This kiss was even shorter than the one in the elevator. Perhaps closing the door had tipped him off that something strange was coming.

 

The next loop, instead of trying to catch him by surprise at all, she gently closed the door to her lab, smiled, and took his hand in hers. “Carter?” he asked, raising his eyebrow but not pulling away. Ok, good. This was good. Or at least, it was better. She raised her other hand to his face and he flinched, and then she flinched too, and dropped his hand as he took a couple quick steps back, accidentally slamming himself into the door.

 

He stared at her, wide-eyed. “I’m just going to…” he said, motioning vaguely over his shoulder for a second before grabbing at the door knob behind him, fumbling with it desperately until he finally got it open and fell out into the hallway.

 

“Yeah,” she nodded, “ok.” She reminded herself again that this was all just part of the scientific process. “Sounds good. Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

Sam did do other things besides try to kiss the Colonel, as they continued to loop and make interminably slow but mostly steady progress on their translation. She kept up with somewhat regular motorcycle rides, of course, and she continued baking bread, though sometimes she did it just to knead the dough and didn't even bother putting it in the oven  

 

Sometimes she and Teal’c did things together. Teal’c agreed to train her in Lok’Nel, an ancient Jaffa style of martial arts in which Teal’c himself was an expert. Sam had already reached level 3 advanced in hand-to-hand combat training, which came in handy quite often in her line of work, and she decided it wouldn’t hurt to expand her repertoire. Not surprisingly, trying to beat the heck out of Teal’c was an even better way to relieve stress than kneading bread dough.

 

In return, she agreed to teach Teal’c how to ride her motorcycle, sincerely hoping that this wouldn’t result in an accident that might test the limits of the time loop’s resetting capabilities. After having spent the last several years on Earth cooped up underground, Teal’c had decided to spend his break time during the loops seeing as much of the planet as he could, and the motorcycle went a long way toward expanding his radius of options.

 

In particular, Teal’c was determined to see the Grand Canyon, a wonder of the world which he had heard referred to, more than once, as an “absolute must-see.” It was about a 10 hour drive from Colorado Springs, and his first attempt a couple loops ago had failed because he made too many stops at indicated scenic overlooks along US-160. For his next attempt, he and Sam made plans for him to grab Sam’s motorcycle keys out of her locker as soon as he had recovered from taking a door to the face so he could leave right away. He was resolved to simply ride as fast as possible, making no stops except for gas until he reached his destination.

 

And so Sam found herself with an entire loop to herself, no bike to ride and nothing else she felt like doing. Nothing else except continue to unravel the mystery of how to kiss the Colonel. Jack. She looked across the commissary table at him eating his Fruit Loops, poking fun at Daniel to cover up for the fact that he didn’t know what Daniel had been talking about, and she sighed. She had tried to kiss him, what, 25 times now? Maybe 30? It might help if she tried to think of him as Jack.

 

Sam idly stirred her coffee, thinking back on all the kisses, trying again to figure out where she was going wrong. She’d tried kissing him in the elevator, in her lab, in his office, in the commissary, in General Hammond’s office (which she had thought was pretty clever but he had not). She’d tried kissing him alone, in front of someone they didn’t know, in front of Daniel, in front of a whole group of people. She’d tried taking him by surprise, she’d tried seducing him, she’d tried pinning him down. No combination of factors was yielding the result she was trying to achieve. What else could she try? Sam sighed again and stared down at her coffee.

 

“Something you’d like to share with the class, Major?” the Colonel - Jack - asked, ever looking for a reason to turn the conversation away from whatever Daniel had been talking about.

 

Suddenly, Sam realized the one factor that was common to every single one of her kiss attempts was herself. Pretty much every time, she kissed him as quickly as possible, and increasingly, she did it toward the end of the loop, so as to avoid him avoiding her for the rest of the loop. She’d never taken time to really set it up. Hell, every single time she’d tried to kiss him, she’d been in uniform. Maybe _that_ was what she was doing wrong. Sam felt as buzz of excitement as ideas started flowing into her mind. With Teal’c on her bike, she called herself a cab and told the driver to take her somewhere she almost never went: the mall.

 

Of course, Sam had clothes she could wear at home. She had flattering outfits and sexy shoes. Hell, she even had lingerie, even if she never had an excuse to wear it. But she could think of no good reason not to spend as much money as she wanted buying whatever might help set the mood properly for the next phase in her experiment.

 

The mall was an intimidating landscape of yawning capitalistic schemes, populated by strollers and haggard parents and entirely too many gangs of teenagers dressed in more or less matching outfits who seemed to genuinely believe they were having fun. Sam pressed on passed these locals, methodically checking every store to see if it might have something useful. They had candles at the base, thanks to Teal’c, but she wanted to set the mood for romance, not kelno’reeming, and besides, she didn’t want to tip Teal’c off to what she was working on any more than she already had. So she bought candles. They had soap at the base, of course, but maybe smelling like lavender vanilla delight would be more enticing. So she bought perfume. She bought a red dress that was way outside her comfort zone but made her look, according to the salesperson, irresistible. She bought mile-high shoes. She bought lipstick. Spying a salon at the end of one of the branches off the main drag in the mall, she got her hair done, and on a whim, threw in a mani-pedi. Not that the Colonel was going to be looking at her toenails. Jack. She smiled to herself. This was weird but maybe, just maybe, it was going to be worth it.

 

Back at the SGC, Sam ignored the blatant stares of just about everyone she walked past. Approaching her personal quarters, at the last minute she turned and picked one of the VIP rooms. She arranged the candles on the table, uncorked the wine, and set a decadent chocolate cake next to an oversized bowl of ice cream. If she was going to seduce Jack O’Neill, she was going to do it right. Running her hands over her dress, which was definitely tighter and shorter than anything else she had ever worn on base, or maybe ever, Sam checked her appearance one more time and reached for the phone. Amazingly, her little shopping spree had taken all day, and there wasn’t that much time left in this loop to complete her experiment.

 

She tried the Colonel in his office, in Daniel’s office, in the General’s office. She tried the control room. She tried the gym. The ice cream was starting to melt. Finally she had him paged, and tried not to feel embarrassed at paging him to the VIP quarters.

 

Three minutes later, she heard a tentative knock at the door before the knob turned, and in walked a confused-looking Colonel O’Neill. Sam leaned seductively against the dresser. “Jack,” she said with a wink.

 

The Colonel stared at her. And stared. And stared. Maddeningly, he kept his gaze fixed firmly on her face. “Are you ok?” he asked. Sam winced. He was definitely not going to be looking at her toes. Finally he looked away from her, his eyes darting around the room. “Is that cake?”

 

Sam straightened. “Yeah, it’s for you,” she said, cleaning her throat and doing her best not to call him sir. “It’s, um, it’s all for you.”

 

The Colonel’s eyes widened and he stepped backwards slowly, toward the emergency phone. Wordlessly, he pressed a few numbers, and then he spoke.

 

“Janet?” he said. “Yeah, there’s something wrong with Major Carter. Uh-huh. I’m in the VIP quarters, room 4. Yes, right away.”

 

 

* * *

 

When finally, finally the loop ended and Sam found herself once again eating breakfast with Daniel and the Colonel, she couldn’t help but blush, and then promptly drop her head onto her arms on top of the table.

 

“Major?” the Colonel asked. “Something you want to -“

 

“Stop.” She interrupted, muttering into her arm. “Just don’t even… just don’t.” When she felt brave enough to lift her head again, she didn’t meet his eye, she just pushed away from the table and retreated to the relative safety of her lab, closing the door behind her as she sank to the floor.

 

This was really not going well.

 

Some time later, Teal’c found her there, still sitting on the floor in her lab, her head in her hands.

 

“Major Carter,” he greeted her, with much more dignity than she felt she felt worthy of at the moment.

 

“Hey Teal’c.” When she didn’t stand up, he simply sat down on the floor next to her, and she couldn’t help but smile a little. “Did you make it?”

 

“Indeed,” Teal’c replied, beaming proudly. “I arrived in less than 8 hours, and evaded several of your planet’s law enforcement officers en route. Your two-wheeled machine is a most enjoyable means of transportation.”

 

Sam nodded, her smile growing. “Can’t argue with that,” she said. “How was the Grand Canyon?”

 

“It was large,” Teal’c replied, and Sam detected the Jaffa equivalent of a shrug in his tone. “I believe perhaps sunrise might provide a more striking viewing opportunity, but this does not occur during the ten hours we are experiencing. There are many such canyons on other worlds I have visited.”

 

“Sorry to hear that,” Sam said, knowing how hard he had worked to reach his goal.

 

“Do not apologize to me, Major Carter. The experience has given me a greater understanding of the Tau’ri saying about finding greater joy in the means of transportation than in the intended target.”

 

Sam chuckled.

 

“Am I to understand that your previous loop was less fulfilling?” he asked.

 

Sam winced as she remembered again the previous loop. She certainly had not found joy in either the journey or the destination. Her intended target remained elusive, and even though she knew he couldn’t remember it, it was getting harder and harder to shake from her mind that look he got on his face every time she tried to kiss him, every single time. And god, she really did hate malls.

 

“I just need a little bit of a break,” she admitted.

 

Teal’c nodded and stood up. “I have no doubt that you will be successful in your… endeavor,” he offered. Sam looked up at him. Just because they hadn’t talked about what she was trying to do didn’t mean he hadn’t figured it out, apparently. He’d been there, after all, in the isolation room in the infirmary where Anise had set up her damn za’tarc machine. He’d heard what they said. And he’d probably known long before then anyway. “You will find the key to your motorcycle back in your locker,” he continued. “Perhaps it could be as enlightening to you as it was to me.”

 

With that, Teal’c departed. Sam thought about her motorcycle, and felt the annoying tickle of an idea creep into her mind. God, but she was getting really sick of coming up with things to try.

 

She rolled her head back and forth between her shoulders and stood up. She wasn’t a quitter. She could try this one last thing.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam found the Colonel in his office. “Major,” he greeted her. “Feeling better, I hope?”

 

It really was nice of him to let her get away with as much as he did, she thought. “Yes, sir,” she replied. “Actually I kind of need a favor, if that’s ok. Sir.”

 

“Pray tell.” The Colonel was trying to look annoyed at her, she could tell, but she could also detect the hint of concern in his demeanor. Certainly her behavior at breakfast had been pretty far out of the ordinary for her, at least as far as he remembered.

 

“I was hoping we could… talk,” she said, looking up at him hopefully. “Sir.”

 

“Talk?” he parroted.

 

“Yeah,” she said. “But not here.”

 

“Not here?”

 

She nodded and walked out of his office and he followed, like she was the commanding officer and he was the subordinate. He followed her down the hall to the elevator, up to the surface, through the check point and across the parking lot to her motorcycle. Only then did he stop and raise his eyebrows in silent question.

 

“I don’t have another helmet for you,” she said apologetically.

 

“You know,” he replied, looking back at the check point they’d just walked through, “the lack of a helmet is not the strangest thing to me right now.”

 

Sam kicked the dirt with her foot for a moment and then looked up at him again. “To be fair,” she said, “this was kind of your idea.”

 

He raised his eyebrows at that. “Well then.” He gestured generously toward her bike. “By all means.”

 

They made their way north from Cheyenne Mountain and hopped on US-24 through Manitou Springs when she turned left onto Pikes Peak Highway. She paused at the ranger’s kiosk to pay the toll and half expected the Colonel to stop her and demand that she return them to the base, or at least ask her what the hell she was thinking. He did neither. He simply sat quietly behind her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She wondered if he felt as nervous as she did.

 

It had been a while since Sam had ridden Pikes Peak Highway. Though less than 20 miles long, she knew it would rise over a mile in altitude and take well over an hour to reach the top, giving her plenty of time to think. She’d resolved to talk the Colonel - to Jack - but she hadn’t exactly figured out what she would say. And honestly, she didn’t think she’d get him this far.

 

Sam was an adrenaline junkie long before she became a soldier, and as such, she was her smartest, surest and bravest when she was terrified. She thrived under pressure, excelled in a crisis, and never felt more in control of her capacities than when she was being shot at by a contingent of Jaffa or chased down by a band of angry locals. Most terrifying of all to Sam was this ride. The steep ascents, sudden drops and hairpin turns were nothing compared to the millions of points of physical contact between herself and Jack O’Neill. They were usually so careful about touch. It was an unspoken agreement between them that the casual touches that might naturally happen between friends and co-workers were too dangerous for them, too risky, as if a hand on a shoulder might inevitably result in a make-out session in a storage closet. Anytime they did happen to touch, her whole body overreacted. And now his legs were pressed up against her legs, his chest was leaning against her back, his arms were wrapped around her waist as he leaned with her into curve after curve. It felt amazing. It felt illicit. And it got her adrenaline pumping more than anything she’d done in a long time.

 

One hour and ten minutes later, they reached the summit, and Sam was buzzing. She felt ready for this. She parked the bike and dismounted, and so did Jack. It was summer, but it was the middle of the day on a week day, and the crowds were relatively sparse. Sam walked toward a picnic table, with Jack still following behind, and sat on top of it, her feet on the bench. Jack did the same. Together they took in the view from 14,000 feet up. The altitude had her a little out of breath, though it wasn’t the only factor.

 

“Hell of a view,” he finally said, his gaze still on the world below.

 

Sam was quiet for a moment before she replied. “I honestly can’t believe you came with me all the way up here.”

 

She heard Jack snort a laugh next to her, and she imagined the smirk he must have on his face, that inescapably endearing face of his. “Carter, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that when a woman says we need to talk, I’d do best to shut up and listen.”

 

So apparently he had some idea of what she was hoping to talk to him about. Sam studied her hands in her lap, elbows resting firmly on her knees, and then looked out at the southern Rocky Mountains spread out around them. She’d wanted to get away from the bowels of the mountain, and from who they both were down there, who they both had to be. The top of the nearest fourteener had seemed like a good idea. It really was a hell of a view.

 

“I keep trying to kiss you,” she blurted out, “and you keep pushing me away.”

 

“Oh.”

 

They were quiet again for a while. She could feel Jack fidgeting next to her. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

 

“Do I seem to be resisting on the grounds that I’m not going to remember it? Like, at all?”

 

Sam sighed. “Honestly, I have no idea. We haven’t really talked about it. You usually just… make an exit.”

 

“Ah,” he replied, falling quiet again.

 

“I know it’s not exactly fair that I’ll remember it and you won’t, but at this point all I’m going to remember is you _not_ kissing me over and over and over again. And that’s no good either.” She chanced a glance at him and he was nodding, still facing the mountains. “And anyway, if our positions were reversed, don’t tell me you wouldn’t at least give it a shot.”

 

Jack raised his eyebrows and peeked at her without turning his head. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat again, “that does seem to be… a point… that we can both agree on.”

 

Sam allowed herself a small smile as she turned back to the view. What an absurd situation this was. “I was starting to think I had it all wrong,” she explained. “For you, it’s only been a couple weeks since the za’tarc machine, and you said…” she trailed off, not daring enough to repeat what had been said, “… and then I said it too, and I thought I knew what it meant. I mean, I knew we couldn’t _do_ anything, but I thought it at least meant that maybe if I tried to kiss you, maybe you would like it. Want it, even. Not push me away.”

 

Jack winced and turned to face her. “I really pushed you away?”

 

Sam nodded. “Yep. A lot. Every single time.”

 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

 

Sam scoffed. “I didn’t bring you up here to make you apologize for something you can’t even remember.”

 

“You sure?” he asked. “Because usually a conversation that starts with ‘we need to talk’ ends with someone expecting me to apologize.”

 

Sam shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just… I wish I hadn’t even started this whole… thing. Because I thought I finally knew how you felt about me, even if we didn’t ever talk about it, but then you never wanted to kiss me, at all, and it called everything back into question again. I guess I just wanted to go back to how things were, when I knew where we stood, even if I can’t… kiss you. I wanted a reset for me.”

 

Jack considered this for a minute, and then looked at her intently. “We did talk about this, you know,” he said. “In the isolation room, after it all happened.”

 

Sam looked at him, confused. “We did?”

 

Jack sighed. “You have to be the one in command on this, Carter,” he said, “and I’m going to be the one following your lead.” That at least explained why he let her drag him up a mountain this afternoon. “You have to know that. You’ve got a whole lot more to lose than I do.” He held up a hand to forestall her objection. “I won’t pressure you or try to influence you. I won’t even have an opinion about what we should do. You already set the terms, and I’m abiding by that. If I’m refusing to kiss you… I don’t know, maybe I’m having a hard time adjusting the terms on a whim, even if we’re…” he waved his hands around in the air, as if he were physically trying to grasp their situation, “trapped in some weird consequence-free time loop thing.”

 

“I set the terms?” What could he possibly be talking about?

 

And then it all came back to her in a flash, from a lifetime ago, a day that was different from these last 10 hours she’d been living over and over again, a day she would never forget. They had just completed her za’tarc re-test, and both of them had been cleared. As personnel shuffled from the observation room to back to the isolation room, Sam and Jack had a fraction of a moment to themselves.

 

_“Carter -“ he said to her, his voice tentative but his eyes intense, as he helped her out of the chair._

 

_“_ _Sir… “ What was he expecting her to say? But he seemed to be waiting for something. “None of this has to leave this room.” It seemed like the best option at the time, because how the hell were they supposed to do anything else, certainly in the middle of a crisis, in the middle of a war._

 

_“We’re ok with that?” She’d done her best not to overthink his reply, the twinge of regret on his face, as Janet and Teal’c and the other Tok’ra filed back into the room._

 

_“Yes, sir.”_

 

“Oh my god,” Sam said, realization finally dawning. “I set the terms.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sam took a deep breath to center herself as the loop restarted. This time, she gave it her very best. She jumped in with her own opinion at breakfast when Daniel asked the Colonel what he thought. She was patient with her teammates’ questions at the briefing, explaining the intricacies of their situation with a level of authenticity that she hadn’t been able to summon in a long time. As everyone filed out of the briefing room to Daniel’s office, she nodded at Teal’c, who had been eyeing her closely so far this loop. He simply nodded in return, a small smile teasing at his eyes.

 

The translation really was progressing well, she realized, applying herself with renewed attention and vigor to their task. As they got farther and farther along, it took more time each loop to get Daniel caught up to speed, but he was able to make more progress in an individual cycle. The difference wasn’t noticeable from one loop to the next, but taking in a broader view and looking back a couple dozen cycles, it was undeniable. Sam smiled to herself as she set the chalk down on the tray and made her way back to her chair near Daniel, yielding the board to Teal’c.

 

“So,” Daniel said gently, predictably, as he edged his chair closer to hers, “I know I must ask you this every loop, but exactly how many of these loops have you… have we been through?”

 

Sam grinned and leaned back in her chair. “We’re in the triple digits now,” she replied, lacing her fingers behind her head.

 

“Wow,” Daniel said. “That’s… that’s a lot.”

 

Sam shrugged, twirling her chair slowly from side to side.

 

“You seem ok,” Daniel continued.

 

Sam stopped twirling and looked at him questioningly.

 

“I just mean… I mean, it would be easy for someone to go pretty crazy, living through the same 10 hours over and over again. But you seem to be doing ok. You seem to be your normal self.”

 

“Well,” Sam replied slowly, considering her response, “it helps to have a goal, and to work toward it.” She ignored Teal’c’s ghost of a smirk as she checked her watch and stood up. “Actually that reminds me, there’s something I have to do right now.”

 

“Isn’t this loop almost over?” Daniel asked.

 

“Yep,” she replied, taking a deep breath. “It’s just a quick thing. A quick little thing.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sam found the infirmary mostly quiet when she arrived. Captain Lorenz’s ankle had been relatively straightforward to treat, and with the SGC cut off from any other Stargate where they might have teams, there was very little activity. She headed straight for the Chief Medical Officer’s office and tapped gently on the door to announce her presence.

 

“Hey, Janet,” she said.

 

Janet turned and smiled at her. “Hey, Sam. Everything ok?” Even if Sam and Teal’c were able each loop to convince Janet that they didn’t need to be examined, the CMO seemed to remain suspicious, or at least curious, about their condition.

 

“Everything’s fine,” Sam replied. “I just need a small favor.”

 

“Ok, what can I do for you?”

 

“Can I use the isolation room for a couple minutes?”

 

“The isolation room?” Janet frowned, as if trying to guess what Sam might possibly be up to. “What do you need it for?”

 

“There’s just something I need to try,” Sam fidgeted, hoping her friend wouldn’t ask for details.

 

Janet shrugged. Apparently she had resigned herself to not being able to indulge her curiosity today. “It’s all yours,” she said. “I was just about to go get myself some coffee anyway.”

 

Sam smiled, relieved Janet hadn’t pressed the issue, not that it mattered, exactly. She had a sudden, terrible urge to giggle, but she was able to hold it back. Instead, she stepped forward and gave Janet a quick hug. “Thanks, Jan,” she said.

 

Janet gave her a perplexed look as she pulled away. “Can I get you anything while I’m out?”

 

“No thanks,” Sam said. “I’ve got everything I need.”

 

Janet walked away, and Sam strode confidently into the isolation room. She looked around, remembering again that fateful day. This was it. She checked her watch. It was time.

 

The Colonel was in Daniel’s office still, where she’d left him just a few minutes ago, and it didn’t take him long to get to the infirmary after receiving her call. He barreled into the isolation room, looking around as if he expected to see something other than just Sam, just standing there, alone.

 

“You wanted to see me here?” he asked.

 

“Yes, sir.” Sam took a deep breath. She stepped behind him and closed the door, and then she turned to face him. Summoning all her remaining courage, she stepped towards him. He stepped back. She stepped towards him again, and he stepped back again, this time bumping into a table and sending a tray full of lab equipment flying to the floor with a loud crash.

 

He startled. His eyes shot back and forth between the tray and Sam as she inched closer still, coming to a stop mere millimeters from him. “Carter, what are you doing?” he finally asked in a squeak. She could practically hear the battle between fight and flight going on in his head. She had done this now so many times.

 

“I’m _trying_ to kiss you.”

 

“What?!” Flight seemed to have the upper hand now as he scrambled backward, only to find that the table he’d bumped into had been up against a wall and he had nowhere to go. He waved his arms in the air at her. “You can’t do that!”

 

“Yes I can!” she shot back. She’d promised herself she’d keep her cool but that promise was proving hard to keep.

 

He gaped at her. He looked stunned. He looked panicked. She stopped, and drew herself up to her full height. His eyes darted around the room now, as if looking for an escape.

 

“Look around you, Jack!” she said. His head whipped around like she’d slapped him, his eyes locking with hers at last. She was almost shouting now. “ _We are in the room_!”

 

Looping time stood still for a moment as her words sank in. Sam watched as Jack’s expression changed from stunned to pensive to maybe kind of impressed, and then she wasn’t watching anymore because his hands were on her face and oh, he was kissing her. Finally. And wow, had it been worth it.

 

There was nothing shy or tentative about the kiss. This kiss was bold, direct, confident. There was no time for beating around the bush, and no need for it either. This was exactly what they both wanted. His hands dropped from her face and skimmed her sides before encircling her waist. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. It felt like he was everywhere, it was more than she’d ever dreamed of but it wasn’t enough. She tilted her head more to the side and felt his lips leave hers, trailing kisses down her jawline to her neck. She dropped her head back and ran her hands through his hair, feeling the rush of blood through her body.

 

“How much longer do we have?” he murmured against her collarbone.

 

“About 30 seconds.”

 

He pulled back then, keeping his arms tight around her waist but resting his forehead against hers. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for such a long time,” he said, his voice husky and his breathing heavy.

 

Sam closed her eyes and kissed him again, more gently this time, etching the memory into her mind and praying that the next 30 seconds would last as long as possible.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Anyway I'm sorry but that just happens to be how I feel about it. What do you think?” 

 

The white flash of light receded and there they all were again. Sam slumped back in her chair, dazed. She stared dreamily at the Colonel, who, happy for the distraction from his failed conversation with Daniel, looked back at her questioningly.

 

“Major? Something you want to share with the class?” he asked. “Major?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

They had done it. They’d translated the text, travelled back to the planet, and convinced Malachi to turn off the machine. Normal time was restored.

 

Relieved as Sam was to be no longer trapped in an endless 10-hour loop, there were a couple habits she’d picked up that she’d have to drop, and fast, like going for motorcycle rides in the middle of the work day, or rolling her eyes at the Colonel. And other things involving the Colonel too.

 

The team sat around a table in the commissary, the Colonel eating a bowl of Fruit Loops and giving Sam an unwelcome sense of deja vu.

 

“Let me ask you something,” Daniel said. “In all the time that you were, ah, looping, were you ever tempted to do something crazy?”

 

Sam immediately blushed, and felt everyone’s eyes on her. Mercifully, Teal’c spoke up. “I took the opportunity to visit your planet’s Grand Canyon.”

 

“Wow,” the Colonel said. “That’s kind of a hike, isn’t it?”

 

“I did not travel by foot, O’Neill.”

 

“No, of course not, I just meant… never mind.”

 

All eyes turned back to Sam.

 

“How about you, Sam?” Daniel asked.

 

She looked at the Colonel, and then back at Daniel, and then over at Teal’c, who seemed to be suppressing a laugh, and then back to the Colonel.

 

“Come on, Daniel, give her a break,” the Colonel said finally. “This is Carter we’re talking about. Her idea of letting loose is staying up all night going over specs for the dialing program.”

 

Sam blushed deeper. The Colonel looked at her, suspicious.

 

“I also learned how to play the harmonica,” Teal’c jumped in.

 

“You did do something, didn’t you,” the Colonel decided, his attention remaining on Sam. He chewed and swallowed another bite of Fruit Loops pensively. “Ah ha! I’ve got it.”

 

Sam willed herself to say something, to change the subject, to make a joke, or if nothing else, to flee, but she found she could not. She was frozen in place.

 

“You blew something up, didn’t you.”

 

She blinked at him.

 

“I knew it.”

 

She let out the breath she was holding.

 

“Must have been something really big,” he smirked.


End file.
